


The Flame And The Figment

by A_Damned_Scientist



Category: Farscape
Genre: Angst, Awkward Sexual Situations, Canon Het Relationship, F/F, F/M, Het and Slash, Humor, M/M, Masturbation, Multi, Non-Canon Relationship, Other, Sex Toys, Sexual Fantasy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-05
Updated: 2013-09-05
Packaged: 2017-12-25 17:53:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/955994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Damned_Scientist/pseuds/A_Damned_Scientist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Cats and dogs living together. No no!” John Crichton, A Bugs Life.</p><p>“No! No no! I mean bad frell!” Aeryn Sun, Meltdown.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part One

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Arevhat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arevhat/gifts).



> Warnings: This fic might be described as Melrose Place meets Farscape. At least if I’d seen more than one ep of MP it might. Hence this fic IS most definitely a PG-13! It contains a lot of innuendo and smut. Although there is a lot of smuttiness, I have tried to avoid graphical descriptions and keep it within what might have been acceptable on the show: I hope that I haven’t overstepped the mark and strayed into R territory.
> 
> Setting: Shortly after Into The Lions Den. May be AU or filler, depending on your preference. Suffice it to say that if you regard this fic as filler rather than AU it goes someway to explaining a lot of loose ends and contradictions in the show, including how Noranti came aboard and THAT Jool/John scene from PKW.
> 
> Written (about a year or two ago) for Nebari Rebel (aka Arevhat), to whom I owe many thanks. She wrote me a little challenge containing the basis of the plot (see the end of the fic. If I show it now, it might spoil the fun for you). She even gave me the title. She also beta’d it, although all mistakes and outrages remain my responsibility. And I warn you, there are a LOT of outrageous things in this fic.
> 
> If anyone works out how many ‘ships are in this fic, maybe you could post a note? I lost count about 3 pages in. I toyed with the idea of using miniature figures to keep track of everyone, whilst Arevhat talked about how a diagram might have helped.
> 
> Lastly I need to apologize on several fronts: I’m not really familiar with romantic fiction or soaps, so I’ve just done my best. Plus I really, really need to apologize for what I’ve done to the characters: I’m Very Sorry for what I’ve done to/with your favourite character.
> 
> Disclaimer: None of these characters are mine, as though you need me to tell you that.

 “Come with me if you want to live…” Lieutenant Miklo Braca intoned with authority, reaching his hand into Jool’s cell on the command carrier. D’Argo, Rygel and Chiana had needed no further encouragement to leave and head for their transport pod once Braca had opened the cell door for them. Jool, however, was reluctant to go. She wanted answers and she wanted them right now. She stood in the middle of the cell, arms crossed, glaring at the hapless lieutenant for a few microts before tossing her head with a harrumph and turning haughtily to inspect the ceiling.  
  
“So, why are you letting us go, then?” she demanded. “Again?”  
  
 “Scorpius’ orders, ma’am. He is most upset that Commandant Grayza ordered you imprisoned,” he beckoned urgently with his fingers and his voice. Was the Interon woman really crazy enough to risk staying here at Grayza’s mercy, he wondered? “Come on!”  
  
“And where is Captain Crais?”  There was no way that Jool was going to leave without Bialar. After all, the only reason she’d come on this fahrbot expedition in the first place was because of her growing romantic feelings for him, feelings which she was sure he reciprocated.  
  
“ _Captain_  Crais?” Braca frowned, taken aback. He’d heard Crais called many things in the last two cycles, but Captain was not one of them.  
  
 “Yes, Bialar!” Jool stamped her foot petulantly. “I want to see him NOW!” she pouted. “And if you don’t let me see him I’m going to scream.”  
  
“Oh, for frell’s sake…. Ma’am…  Very well…. This way…”  
  
‘~’  
  
“I’m so glad we didn’t go through with the original plan of starbursting whilst inside the carrier,” Bialar explained as he and Jool watched the imploding command carrier through Talyn’s view portal. She clung to him for reassurance whilst he threw a protective arm around her shoulder. If he and Talyn had survived the starburst, the original plan was then to continue the attack on the carrier from outside at close quarters.  
  
 “You came aboard just in time to stop us.” He smiled and pulled her closer, before kissing her delicately and chastely on her brow. Once Jool had come aboard Talyn she had angrily rubbished Crais’ seemingly suicidal plan, suggesting that instead that they should escape from the hangar bay in a more controlled manner and then attack from outside, at such close quarters that the carrier would not be able to bring its main weapons to bear. Crais had soon come round to her plan once she had started to get upset. Maybe he had been scared that she was going to scream, maybe he just didn’t want to see her cry? She didn’t care: She’d won the argument and had kept them alive to love another day.  
  
“It was a pretty stupid plan,” Jool replied contentedly. “Was it one of Crichton’s?”  
  
Once Talyn had begun his attack the Peacekeepers had fought back, but only light weapons could be brought to bear on him, and those only briefly. Soon Talyn, guided by Crais’ expert insight, had torn through to a critical system on the carrier, cutting a swathe of destruction as he went. Once the engine power cores had begun to explode, the carrier was doomed. Jool’s simple idea had, probably, saved them all. She certainly thought so.  
  
Another explosion aboard the wreckage of the carrier rocked Talyn. Braca, who was lying on the floor behind them, stirred with a groan.  
  
“What about him?” Jool asked, indicating the semi-conscious lieutenant.  
  
“Braca?” Crais smiled mischievously. Jool’s heart fluttered. She loved Bialar’s rakish smile. “Don’t worry about him. In my experience lieutenant Braca is always very swift to assess a situation and to conclude what lies in the best interests of his own safety.”  
  
At that moment the main door to Talyn’s command swung open and two female Sebaceans, both dressed as Peacekeepers entered the chamber. Crais turned to greet them.  
  
“It’s good to see you, Aeryn,” Crais said. “I take it your prowler is safely secured?” Aeryn nodded perfunctorily and without further ado made for what appeared to Jool to be a random console. Aeryn’s companion looked around Talyn’s bridge in wide-eyed wonder. It was obvious from her expression that she had not been aboard before. “And Officer Henta? To what do we owe the unexpected pleasure?” Crais brusquely added, latching a beady eye onto the newcomer.  
  
“It’s good to see you, too, Crais,” Officer Yal Henta replied sarcastically. She looked as though she’d already had quite a difficult day. Her uniform and hair looked as though it had been slightly burnt in places and her eyebrows seemed to have been singed off entirely.  Crais’ attitude, combined with what had been quite a trying afternoon for her, was enough to make her blood boil. “Aeryn finally persuaded me that our leadership might be a bit lacking…  Of course if I’d have known that you were in charge here, I might have thought that through a bit more carefully…” Henta smiled sweetly at Crais. Aeryn and Crais both responded with wan smiles. Yal was obviously not in the mood to be pushed further.  
  
“He’s not in charge,” Aeryn began, trying to appease her, as Crais held his hands up in a symbol of combined protest and pacification. But events overtook them.  
  
“One microt… Crichton is hailing us…” Crais remarked, touching a finger to his forehead as Talyn relayed a message to him via the neural interface. “He’s afraid something is going to explode…  He says he can’t hold out much longer… He wants to dock his module!”  
  
Aeryn rolled her eyes and sighed heavily. “Frell! Is Moya nearby? Can’t she pick him up?”  
  
“I’m afraid there is no sign of Moya. Talyn thinks that she might have starburst away as soon as she picked up the others’ transport pod.”  
  
“Frell!” Aeryn expostulated. “I suppose we’d better let Crichton dock his frelling module, then.”  
  
‘~’  
  
Talyn pitched and soared, the turbulence seemingly ignored by Bialar Crais as he stood on Talyn’s bridge, his bearing proud and erect. Jool hung on tightly to the nearest console. She’d have preferred to have been hanging on tightly to Bialar, but she hadn’t been close enough when the pursuit had started.  
  
One of these days Jool would have to ask someone what all of the different consoles were for, as no matter how much she observed the crew working, it never seemed to be clear to her. But for now her eyes were only for The Captain. He looked magnificent in his tight Peacekeeper leathers, but that was not all that attracted her to him. Jool loved the way he took charge, commanding his mighty vessel as though it were an extension of his own body. She flicked a lock of her tumbling red hair out of her eyes so that she could gaze at him unimpeded. She was just grateful that none of the others were present, crowding the command and interrupting her view of him. For so much of the last weeken the others had gotten between her and Bialar making her doubly grateful now that she had him to herself.  
  
Talyn was a crowded ship. He was still growing, and so far had only developed four crew quarters: Once they had escaped from the destruction of the command carrier, Crais had taken one, well, he had kept the quarters which had always been his, really. Aeryn had stoically gone along with Henta’s suggestion that they should share another. Jool had initially taken the third room, leaving Crichton, Crais and Braca to argue about who should have to share and who they should share with.  
  
All three men had seemed greatly relieved when, after a couple of days, Jool had finally succumbed to her growing feelings and moved in with Crais. This had allowed Crichton and Braca a cabin each. She couldn’t help but notice how the stress levels of all three men had seemed much reduced the next morning at first meal.  
  
Henta’s suggestion to share quarters with Aeryn had seemed surprisingly enthusiastic to Jool, at least at the time, as the two female Peacekeepers were equally frosty whenever Jool was in their company. It was a few days later that Jool began to realise that Henta likely had more in mind than simply spending nights swapping make-up and fashion tips with her old wing-mate. If Jool lived to be 30 cycles old she still didn’t think she’d fully understand the Peacekeeper mind when it came to what they called ‘recreation’. Any partner seemed to do, so long as they were available. Being attractive didn’t seem to be a problem in their ranks. Jool suspected that anyone who was less than thoroughly pretty was assigned to some unusually hazardous or invisible duty.  
  
Jool gasped, nearly loosing her footing again as Talyn darted into an asteroid field. They were broadly heading towards the sacred Leviathan Burial Ground, in hot pursuit of a small, single-person pod. The ship they were chasing had been identified as a scout ship for Grudeks, toubray hunters. When Talyn had discovered the tiny craft, there had been no holding him back. He hated them with a passion that even Crais struggled to control. It was all he could do to prevent the gunship blasting the smaller vessel into a million pieces.  
“We must capture them, gather intelligence. Then we can go after their main vessel,” Crais had explained to Talyn, who, it seemed, had grudgingly accepted.  
  
‘~’  
  
Crais stood outside the docking bay, urgently pacing back and forth whilst he waited for the air pressure to cycle back up. As soon as Talyn allowed, he strode purposefully inside towards the captured pod. He couldn’t wait to get his hands on the luckless pilot.  
Aeryn and Braca, their guns at the ready, covered him from the doorway, carefully moving inside and seeking cover like the professional soldiers that they were.  
  
The pod cracked open and a slim hand emerged, followed by a slight, female cough.  
  
“Step out of the pod NOW!” Aeryn barked. Crais sniggered at Braca’s discomfort as the lieutenant winced slightly at Aeryn’s harsh, loud voice.  
  
A waif-like female, her tightly braided red hair matching her tight rust-red leather outfit, warily climbed from the pod. She was definitely not a Grudek. At first glance she appeared to be Kalish. Crais felt a hitch in his breathing as the female emerged. Despite her coming from a race aligned to the Scarrans, for all that she represented the hated toubray hunters, and for all that he shared Talyn’s child-like fury at her, she was surely still the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. She would have even counted as the most beautiful creature he had ever seen, had not Talyn already taken that place in his heart.  
  
Bialar Crais approached the pod, as though drawn to its occupant by an invisible force.  
  
As the female emerged from the pod she stumbled slightly, falling to her knees and seeming as though she were about to faint. One delicate hand stretched out, allowing her to brace herself against Crais’ firm, muscular thigh.  
  
“Oh!” she breathed, her striking bright blue-green eyes slowly scanning upwards, taking in every stimulating detail on the way, until they locked with Crais’ own. “Peacekeepers! Thank Cholak! I was worried that those horrible Grudeks had caught up with me!”  
  
“We’re not Peacekeepers!” Aeryn protested.  
  
“Are you sure? You’ve got the guns and the clothes and everything…” the newcomer seemed a bit confused as she looked pointedly from Crais to Aeryn and Braca, taking in their race, clothing and weaponry.  
  
“We are NOT Peacekeepers!” Aeryn restated adamantly, her cheeks flushing slightly.  
  
The red female arched an eyebrow. “If you say so….” She said, still swaying a little unsteadily, almost as though she were drunk.  
  
“Strictly speaking, Officer Sun is correct,” Crais began, but his throat dried up as peered down at her, watching her eyes taking in her surroundings whilst he took in the bravura view. As he did so she pulled herself upright, using his body as a ladder for her hands. They finally came to rest on his shoulders. Her lips parted invitingly and he felt her excited breath, cool on his face.  
  
“Is there something wrong with the air in here?” she asked, swooning slightly. Crais frowned for a moment, consulting Talyn through the neural interface.  
  
“All of Talyn’s life support systems are within normal limits.”  
  
“Talyn…  The famous Leviathan….  Gunship!” the woman gasped excitedly, her pupils dilating and cheeks reddening. “How exciting!”  
Crais was impressed with how quickly she had identified Talyn, despite him being unique. “And you are the Captain of this magnificent creature?” the woman asked, her voice husky and low. Crais nodded, suddenly finding he had lost the gift of speech. “Fascinating,” she purred, her wide, green eyes fixed on his darker ones and she ran a finger along his collarbone.  
  
Crais felt a sudden change in his demeanour, as though he were uplifted by her very touch. He nodded. He could feel that Talyn seemed unusually taken with her, too.  
  
Aeryn cleared her throat with a cough. “Umm, Crais…..” She called, trying to get his attention before it was too late.  
  
‘~’  
  
It was too late.  
  
Jool entered the docking bay without a care in the universe. After all, with Braca and Aeryn acting as Bialar’s back-up, their weapons at the ready, what could possibly threaten her and the Gallant Captain?  
  
Her comfortable idyll was cruelly dashed on the rocks of disappointment and betrayal as her eyes took in her lover, Bialar Crais, in the arms of an attractive female newcomer. The interloper was slimmer, younger and, the horror! She was a red-head. Bialar and the tralk stood, toe to toe, her hands resting on his shoulders, his on her waist, staring into each others eyes. Suddenly, Crais responded to Aeryn’s cough and noticed Jool’s arrival. As he turned his eyes towards Jool he almost immediately started backwards from the strange woman. His mouth opened, as though to try to explain and placate Jool, but his guilty thoughts were clear for all to see.  
  
“Jool, it’s not….” Bialar began to protest, somewhat against all of the evidence to the contrary.  
  
“NOOOO!” Jool cried. “I don’t want to hear……….” And with that, eyes streaming tears, she fled from the docking bay.  
  
Sikozu’s fingertips gently turned Crais’ face back towards her. “What was THAT all about?” she asked. “And who’s the drama-queen?”  
  
 ‘~’  
  
Crichton was beside himself, driven to distraction by a combination of angst and backlogged bodily fluids.  Aeryn had scarcely acknowledged his existence since they had all escaped from the command carrier and his module and her prowler had been picked up by Talyn. On their first meeting, after he had landed on Talyn, she had directed her briefest, angriest glare towards him and then stalked off without a backwards glance. He suspected that if Aeryn had her way there would have been no chance of him docking his module.  
  
Now he was back in the docking bay, but instead of Aeryn, who he had hoped to corner and talk to, there was only Officer Yal Henta. Still, all was not lost: Aeryn and Henta had been remarkably close these last few days. Maybe she could help him get Aeryn back?  
  
He walked up behind her and gently took hold of her elbow. She rounded on him, holding a spanner like a cudgel. Was that a growl? Geez, were all Sebacean women so short-fused? How did their race survive?  
  
“What do you want?” she snarled, shaking off his hand.  
  
“Henta, you gotta help me get Aeryn back,” John whined. “Please!” Why did he suddenly feel like a kid in the playground?  _‘Can you tell your friend I fancy her? I’m too scared!’_ He dismissed the thought.  
  
“Back?” She snorted disdainfully. “Look, you might have helped her service her prowler for a while, but she’s got Peacekeepers for company now. What the frell would she want with a deficient specimen like you?”  
  
“Sorry?” John floundered, reeling from the blows to his ego and to his most cherished fantasies. Had Aeryn really been this obnoxious when they had first met? Probably. She was not exactly that much improved now. He shrugged. She was still Aeryn, the object of his deepest desires and fantasies.  
  
 “I mean, you’re not bad, you look Sebacean. I’d probably end up frelling you myself if I’d been stuck with you for monens on end. But now she’s got plenty of choices. She doesn’t need you. So why don’t you just frell off?”  
  
And with that Henta pushed passed him and stomped away. John watched her departing back open-mouthed, as a mixture of surprise and despair played themselves out in his head.  
  
 _“_ _Mmm-mmmm. That sure is a tasty burger!_ _” Harvey exclaimed, swiping a lump of cheesy mayonnaise off of his chin with one leather-clad finger before gulping it down. John frowned, momentarily confused by the dislocation. They were seated in an old, scruffy sedan, were dressed in cheap dark suits and Harvey was sporting a preposterous looking afro-style wig. “_ _Ever have a Big Kahuna Burger?_ _”_  
  
 _“Frell no!” John shook his head vigorously, finally getting his head around Harvey’s little fantasy. “Get out of my head Harv, this isn’t a good time!”_  
  
 _Harvey smiled disarmingly. “Is it ever?” John didn’t answer with more than a grunt, so Harvey pressed on. “You really need to stop seeing our little chats in terms of linear narratives, John. Time is an illusion…”_  
  
 _“Lunchtime doubly so. Yeah yeah, whaddya want, Harv? I’m busy”_  
  
 _“What do I want? No no no, John. Surely this is all about what you want and what you cannot have?”_  
  
 _“Stop being so negative or get outta my head!” John demanded, snatching the burger from Harvey and biting down on it viciously. It tasted like food cubes. Why couldn’t something, just for once, taste like it should? Or failing that, like chicken would do._  
  
 _“How about pursuing a romantic liaison with one of the other females aboard? Maybe even Officer Henta? Isn’t she your type? Tall, slim, dark-haired……” John was still trying to ignore him, chomping on the burger. A wicked gleam entered Harvey’s eye. “Flat-butted? Officious? Rude?  Unpleasant?” John flailed around, forcing the burger back on Harvey and then fruitlessly trying to open the car door and get out, to escape from his tormentor. But the door wouldn’t budge, so he subsided._  
  
 _“She’s not even remotely my type, Harv.” John breathed, rubbing his face with his hand._  
  
 _“Oh, come now John,” Harvey snorted his disbelief. “You cannot deny that you have had sexual thoughts about her, about all of them.” John refused to be drawn. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of, you’re a male, that’s just the way you’re made.”_  
  
 _“Frell you!” John snarled._  
  
 _Harvey arched a non-existent eyebrow. “An interesting proposal, John, but you will pardon me if I decline on this occasion. But we digress: We were discussing you and Officer Henta.”_  
  
 _“Drop it, Harv!”_  
  
 _“Oh John, you know you can’t fool me, remember?” Harvey tapped his temple with one finger and grinned. When John didn’t respond, the grin evaporated._  
  
 _“She’s giving Officer Sun back rubs, you know?” Harvey continued after a few microts, breaking the brief, silent calm._  
  
 _“Oh, for frell’s sake!” John exploded, becoming agitated again, trying to force the car door open. It was still unyielding. “Back rubs don’t mean nothing!”_  
  
 _“And foot massages.” Harvey continued. John spluttered_  
  
 _“Don’t you dare go there, Harvey!”John shouted, apoplectic now, threatening to strike Harvey._  
  
 _“I’m just the messenger!” Harvey protested, trying to portray himself as the innocent party. “But hey, it’s like they say. A Big Mac’s a Big Mac wherever you go….”_  
  
 ‘~’  
  
Crais had been following Sikozu around all morning like a lovestruck puppy. Sikozu, unaccustomed to anything very much, including having a stalker of her very own, was thoroughly enjoying it. Finally, Crais managed to arrange matters so that he and the Kalish were together in confined and relatively private space.  
  
“It’s over between Jool and me,” Crais confessed to Sikozu huskily, leaning one hand against the wall by her head, thus bringing them even closer together and reducing her options to avoid him.  
  
“I’m so sorry,” she replied with a coy smile.  
  
“No you’re not.”  Crais replied, gently touching her face with his finger. “And neither am I.”  Sikozu nodded knowingly in agreement. “Ever since I first saw you….”  
  
“I feel the same. Ever since I first stepped aboard Talyn….” Sikozu replied with a giggle. “I felt giddy… almost light headed, as soon as I saw…”  
  
“Would you like to….” Bialar blushed, shy about saying what he wanted to say to her. She encouraged him with a broad smile and flashing, keen eyes. “Would you like to come back to my quarters?”  
  
She grinned and nodded, licking her lips. His breath caught at the sight.  
  
“Erm, would you be interested in the hand of friendship?” Her eyes went wide with surprise. Maybe he’d said too much too soon? “Umm, not quite yet, of course,” he backpedalled, worried at her reaction.  
  
“Well, I’ve never heard it called that before,” Sikozu sniggered, grabbing his arm and dragging him out of the alcove. “Maybe we should just start with the finger of friendship and see where it leads?”  
  
 ‘~’  
  
Jool stomped into the galley, putting on a graphic and audible display of her displeasure for anyone present. She had just come from spotting Crais and Sikozu entering the captain’s private quarters, and from their boisterous yet furtive behaviour it didn’t look as though they were intent on anything as innocent as a game of Rock Paper Scissors.  
  
“That shameless, red-headed TRALK!” Jool squealed, dabbing at the corners of her eyes with a small cloth to soak up the tears which were starting to bead there. She glanced around, pouting disappointedly as she realised that precisely no one seemed to be present in the dimly lit room to see her performance. “Ooooh!” she exclaimed, fisting her hands through the air in frustration. What was the point of throwing a scene if there was no audience to appreciate it and give you their sympathy?  
  
It was then that a black-clad figure detached itself from one of the shadowy alcoves and swaggered toward her. Jool gasped as she realised she was not, in fact, alone, and then gasped again as the handsome face of Miklo Braca was illuminated by a shaft of light spilling from the corridor outside. He wore a knowing smile, almost a smirk, as he closed the last few denches between them. Stopping before her his hand, fingers splayed, rose to her shoulder before gently running down to her elbow. She shivered at his electric touch.  
  
“You should forget about Crais,” Braca whispered into her ear, his breath hot and thrilling on her neck and cheek. “Let me help you,” he added, moving closer, his body pressing up against her as he nibbled her earlobe. “Show you what a real man…”  
  
“It’s just so hard,” she sobbed.  
  
“I know,” Braca sympathised, grinding his hips against hers.  
  
“If only…” But she couldn’t seem to remember ‘if only what.’ Something else seemed to have come up now, distracting her.  
  
“I’ve heard people say that I often look a little bit stiff,” he whispered in her ear. “Let me show you why …”  
  
 ‘~’  
  
“There’s something I have to tell you, Bialar,” Sikozu whispered into his ear. They lay on their backs in post-coital abandon. Her head rested gently on his shoulder as they snuggled beneath the black, latex-like sheets in the captain’s cabin.  
  
“You do not need to say anything,” Bialar purred back, toying with one of her ringlets.  
  
“I do,” she insisted breathily. “You see, I’m, I’m not like other girls.”  
  
Bialar grinned broadly and laughed. It was a deep luxurious sound which Sikozu found put her at ease. “I know,” he growled and squeezed that bit of her which was under his right hand at that moment. Her breath caught and she punched him playfully on his shoulder.  
  
“Not like that,” she explained, rolling on top of him and starting to rock gently back and forth. “Well, not just like that.”  
  
“No, don’t tell me,” he whispered, touching her lips with his fingers. “Secrets make things more fun.”  
  
Crais looked up into her beautiful green-blue eyes, framed by her cascading, copper-coloured tresses. He began to rock his own hips gently in time with her. Yes, thought Crais, she was certainly more energized than most females. He could honestly say that no lover he had ever known had lasted longer. He was not sure why, but she reminded him somewhat of a small animated toy that he had had before the Peacekeepers had abducted him and his brother: The plaything was shaped like a small furry animal which endlessly beat out a rhythm on a small drum.  
  
Actually, she was also quite adept at endlessly beating out a rhythm, but he decided that that was as far as he wanted to pursue the similarities.  
  
Sikozu arched an eyebrow and decided that, if keeping secrets was what he wanted, then she wouldn’t tell him that she had more in common with Talyn than Crais could possibly imagine. She had been programmed to think that a relationship required trust and a lack of secrets, but now, here was a fleshling telling her something else. Relationships were so confusing, so illogical: She sighed softly and continued to beat out her rhythm on him.  
  
‘~’  
  
 _“Really, John!” Harvey scolded. “I cannot see your problem!”_  
  
 _John looked around him. He should have been in one Talyn’s maintenance bays. He was fairly certain his body still was. Instead, though, he and Harvey were seated in a snug in what appeared to be a 1950’s diner, all chrome, white tile and milkshakes. Both were wearing blue jeans and white T-shirts. A leather bomber jacket lay on the red upholstery between them, the T-Birds logo just visible, emblazoned across the back. Harvey, naturally, was still wearing his jacket, with the collar turned up. A cigarette dangled from his lower lip. If he had hair it would have been greased back._  
  
 _“There are…. “ Harvey ticked off his fingers, “three males on this ship, not counting myself and Talyn.” Harvey swapped hands. John suddenly remembered his remark to Aeryn, monens before, about swapping hands and blushed. “And one, two, three, four eligible young females…” Harvey waved at the booth opposite, where Aeryn, Henta and Jool sat. They were dressed in flouncy, lacy pink 1950-style dresses, their hair done up in beehives and be-ribbonned ponytails. Henta and Jool looked at John and Harvey, whispered something to each other and then giggled. Jool looked down momentarily then back at them, screwed up her nose with a cutesy smile and then waved._  
  
 _“Now, take Joolushku. She is attractive, intelligent…”_  
  
 _“But I love Aeryn!” John snapped._  
  
 _“Available….” Harvey emphasized. John glowered at him. At that moment, Crais, Braca and Sikozu entered the diner. Crais and Braca were, naturally, also dressed in denim and leather, whilst Sikozu was in the tightest black leather outfit John recalled seeing since, well, since he’d last seen the final scene of Grease. Her hair was in the tight braids she had worn when she had first arrived on Talyn, completing her contrast to the other three females. Crais and Sikozu, joined at the hip, hand, buttock and every which way, squirmed into another booth and ostentatiously began to make out. Braca, chewing gum all the while, strutted like a peacock across to where the Pink Ladies sat and invited himself in, climbing across Aeryn before throwing an arm around both Jool and Aeryn’s shoulder. He flashed Harvey and John a dren-eating grin before turning his lascivious smile and attentions towards Jool._  
  
 _“John, let me be frank. In all the time we have known each other, your chances of enjoying what you term ‘a relationship’,” Harvey punctuated the phrase by waggling a finger of each hand in the air, “with Officer Sun have never seemed slimmer. If you take MY advice…..”_  
  
 _“Don’t want or need your advice, Harv!” John interrupted. Aeryn chose that moment to glower resentfully at John for a couple of microts before detaching herself from beneath Braca’s arm and making her way round the booth to Henta’s side. Once there Aeryn engaged Henta in conversation, studiously ignoring both John and Harvey._  
  
 _“You see what is going on here, John?”_  
  
 _“No! You tell me,” John remained defiant._  
  
 _“Because of your stubbornness a Universe of possibilities is passing you by. You should instigate ‘a relationship’,” here he emphasized the quotation with his fingers again, “with the delightful Joolushku whilst you still can.”_  
  
 _John shook his head. Harvey harrumphed impatiently. “Well if you don’t have the… the stones…? I reckon someone else will,” Harvey commented with a sly grin._  
  
 _“Watcha mean by that, Harv?” John snapped._  
  
But he was already back in the maintenance bay. Henta was also there, looking at him strangely.  
  
“What?” John demanded testily. She arched an eyebrow, turned around and left.  
  
 ‘~’


	2. Part Two

“Has Crichton always been this insane?” Henta asked Braca, as she clutched at his shoulders and encouraged him to adjust his position slightly. They had come to a quiet part of the ship together to fix a leaky conduit. Once their work on Talyn was done they had agreed to engage in a little personal routine maintenance.  “I mean, the talking to himself and everything?”  
  
“Yes. Scorpius’ neural clone…. In his head… Talks to him…” Braca explained matter-of-factly between gulps of air.  
  
“Hezmanna, really?” Henta frowned and kneaded her hands in Braca’s hair, trying and failing to get a grip on his short-cropped fuzz. “Oh!” She exclaimed, arching her back slightly. She took a couple of deep breaths. “So Scorpius could take him over at any moment?” She asked as they swapped positions.  
  
“Hmm, possibly. Although I don’t know what you’re complaining about,” he sneered. “It’s me that has to share sleeping quarters with the frellwit.” Braca expounded in a somewhat irritated tone.  
  
“Isn’t there…. anything we…. can do?”  Came Henta’s somewhat muffled and fractured response. She pulled back for a moment to consider her options. “Other than spacing him, of course.” She plunged back down.  
  
“Yes!” Cried Braca, evidently delighted. “So what’s wrong with spacing him?” he chuckled, although he added more quietly. “Apart from the fact I’ve already tried that and it didn’t work.” He let out a deep, heartfelt sigh.  
  
“I don’t think Aeryn or Bialar would let us,” Henta remarked, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand as she stood and began to sort out her dishevelled uniform.  
  
“Well, there’s some sort of medical instrument that I heard is supposed to be able to neutralize the clone. We could go and have a look down in the med lab: I think I saw something like it down there when Jool was patching up my head last weeken? Maybe one of the techs from the carrier left it there?”  
  
“Well, why didn’t you frelling say so?” Henta snapped back, zipping up the last of her clothing.  
  
“You never asked. Besides, neither Scorpius nor the clone would be too happy….” Braca remarked, securing his pants.  
  
“You think that matters now? Let’s get the gizmo and sneak up on him while he’s asleep.”  
  
 ‘~’  
  
Braca opened a small black and red case and pulled out a long, almost cylindrical black wand. It was maybe a dozen denches long and a couple of denches in circumference. “Got it!” he hissed.  
  
“Are you sure that’s it?” Henta peered at the object. “It looks awfully like a….”  
  
“I know what it looks like!” Braca frowned. “But which of us is more familiar with Scorpius?”  
  
“You are,” she shrugged.  
  
“And who is the senior officer?” he added.  
  
“You. But,” she bit her lip. It really did look like something else, other than a device to remove neural clones. Not that she knew what one of those should look like. Maybe it was multifunctional?  
  
 “Correct, I’m the lieutenant, you’re the officer. Just remember that,” Braca blustered.  
  
Henta decided that, put like that, she’d better just go along with him.  
  
A few dozen microts later Braca and Henta crept into John’s darkened room. John lay on his cot, snoring heavily. Biting his lip with concentration, Braca gently pressed the narrow end of the device into John’s exposed ear whilst Henta both watched Braca and kept a look out from the doorway.  
  
Braca pressed one of the flat buttons on the wider end of the device. Almost immediately it let out a loud beep and started to buzz.  
  
“AERYN!” John shouted, seeming to be awake in an instant. Before anyone else had time to react he had pulled Winona from under his pillow and was pointing the gun at Braca’s startled face.  
  
 “What the hell are you doing?” John demanded angrily, blinking his eyes to clear the fuzz of sleep and confusion surrounding the circumstances of his awakening.  
  
“Nothing, err, nothing,” Braca replied, somewhat unconvincingly. “Honest!”  
  
“What the hell is that then?” John nodded to the vibrating object Braca still held in one hand.  
  
"Oh…. That… Nothing…. It’s nothing!” Braca replied, looking at his hand as though he had never seen the object before in his life. He pressed the button again and, with another beep, it stopped buzzing.  
  
“Well, if it’s nothing, you won’t mind leaving it here when you go, will you?”  
  
“Ahhh!” Braca considered his options for a microt, before deciding to relinquish the neural neutraliser, tossing it onto John’s cot. “I suppose not.”  
  
“Now get out! Get The Frell OUT!”  John shouted, gesturing with Winona. Wisely, Braca complied. Henta had already made herself scarce some microts previously. “And don’t frelling come back!”  
  
John picked up the gizmo and inspected it for a moment. It was nearly a foot long, and twice as thick as his thumb, smooth, slightly tapered, with a couple of buttons at the thicker end. It was, of course, black with red highlights. It’s appearance kind of reminded him of some sort of…. actually, he didn’t want to think about what it reminded him of or what Braca and Henta might have been planning by sticking it in his ear whilst he was asleep. He had long ago decided that Peacekeepers were sometimes just downright weird.  
  
“Pfft! I know everyone and their dog out here is trying to mind-frell me, but this is just ridiculous!” He proclaimed to no-one in particular before tossing the device into the corner of his quarters.  
  
 ‘~’  
  
Jool couldn’t quite remember how she ended up drowning her sorrows with Crichton. But it was the middle of ship’s night and he was the only one willing to sit up and match her drink for drink, self-pitying anecdote for self-pitying anecdote.  
  
“I think Miklo is recreating with that Henta woman,” Jool moaned as they sought refuge in one of the alcoves.  
  
“Why’d you think that?” Crichton’s felt a momentary pang of hope. If Braca and Henta were together now, then maybe he and Aeryn stood a chance?  
  
“Well, they’re both Peacekeepers aren’t they?” She stuck her bottom lip out. Crichton didn’t comment. It seemed to Jool as though he was lost in his own thoughts. “They’re always at it. Frelling, I mean.”  
  
“I wish,” Crichton muttered morosely. Jool chose to ignore his comment.  
  
“Besides, he wants me to dress up in all this leather fetish gear,” she complained. She ignored Crichton’s raised eyebrow as his eyes scanned up and down her current outfit.  
  
“Well, you’re not exactly averse to…” he caught her scowl and stopped. “Sorry. Go on.”  
  
“I draw the line at a leather balaclava. It’s not only kinky, it messes up my hair!” She finished with a defiant pout.  
  
“So what you going to do?” Crichton offered her a swig from the raslak then took a gulp himself.  
  
“Dump him, the lousy drannit.”  
  
“Best thing,” Crichton advised with an understanding nod. He was beginning to slur his words, being a bottle of raslak ahead of Jool by then. “My gal is bunkin’ up with her homejirl. An’ I don’t even wanna know what they’re getting up to.”  
  
Now it was Jool’s turn to raise a questioning eyebrow. She accompanied the gesture with a derisive snort. “Really?”  
  
“Pah! S’no way they’d ever let me watch,” he snivelled, mistaking her sympathy over his situation for cynicism that he might not want to know what they were getting up to. He took another swig from his bottle.  
  
Jool frowned. “Why would you want to? Watch, I mean?” Jool asked, genuinely not understanding. John leered at her then sniggered. In his inebriated state that meant that he nearly sprayed her with raslak.  
  
“I’m a guy!” He smirked, “Guys dream about….” But then something seemed to make him very unhappy, and he choked out a sob.  
  
Jool put down her own drink and moved closer, lifting a hand to his face to comfort him.  
  
“Oh don’t cry. I’m sure things’ll get better.”  
  
“Really, when?”  
  
“They will. You’re a handsome man….” His eyes met hers and her thoughts started to stumble. His eyes were so blue, so breathtaking. “You could have any woman….” He snagged her hand in his, holding it to his face. She felt a little shiver run up her arm and an excited warmth stirring in her abdomen.  “I mean… “ He looked so hurt, so needy. He pulled her knuckles to his lips and kissed gently. She shivered more extensively. “I mean, I know I would…” she continued. But her last words were lost as his hand crept up into her hair then gently pulled her in, closing the denches between them, allowing his lips to capture her mouth.  
  
‘~’  
  
Crichton was in a quandary. Actually, he was in his module, conducting essential maintenance. He was half hoping Jool didn’t stop by, not that he wouldn’t have welcomed a hand from her, but he had other concerns. He’d had girlfriends before who we would have classed as ‘Screamers’, but Jool took the description to a whole new level. On that first, drunken night together his brain had been too befuddled to remember in advance about the head and metal-melting power of her screams. He had nearly paid for his oversight with a perforated eardrum and some serious damage to Winona. He had only been saved from those twin disasters by capturing her mouth in a kiss which he had prolonged until she had calmed back down. Since then he’d been careful to restrict their amorous activities to first base.  
  
Maybe she wasn’t right for him, he wondered? On the rare occasions he had been with Aeryn it was usually him that did the screaming, typically in the form of him begging her for mercy.  
  
 _John found himself dressed in work denims, sitting on a porch next to a similarly attired, elderly Harvey. Mid-western plains stretched in every direction, as far as the eye could see. The low, satisfied roar of a lion came from a large sweetcorn patch in front of the house. What a lion was doing in such an all-American setting was not immediately obvious._  
  
 _“Why you backin’ off now Johnny-boy?” Harvey asked, running a cleaning cloth over the shotgun nestled on his knees._  
  
 _“Go away Harvey, I’m busy.”_  
  
 _“No you ain’t.” Harvey challenged. John ignored him. “What, you wanna get old alone?” John continued to ignore him. “What’s the point of being able to say you that ‘You’re John Crichton and_ _you’ve loved only one woman with a passion no one else can understand’ if y’all end up alone, with just me and Aeryn the second hand Lioness over there?” Harvey drawled, pointing to the sweetcorn patch. ‘Aeryn’ growled contentedly in what seemed like a reply._  
  
 _“You wouldn’t understand, Harvey.”_  
  
 _“Try me!”_  
  
 _“Sometimes the things that may or may not be true are the things a man needs to believe in the most, because those are the things worth believing in,”_ _John recited._  
  
 _“You don’t treat her right an’ Jool’s gonna dump you, y’know. Just like all the others.”_  
  
 _“All the others?” John replied angrily. “Oh, frell off, Harv.”_  
  
 _“Jus’ sayin is all….” Harvey continued polishing his gun in silence. After a while the sun began to set._  
  
 ‘~’  
  
When Jool saw Aeryn and Henta in the galley she almost turned right round and fled. Then she wondered if they’d notice if she did, as they both seemed so caught up in each other and the bottle of raslak standing between them.  
  
She ventured inside, eventually summoning up the courage to join them.  
  
“So,” Henta began, pouring a generous shot of something caustic and viscous into a small, metal beaker and slapping it on the table before Jool. “Now you’ve frelled all three of them, spill.”  
  
Aeryn glared seriously at Henta for a couple of microts and Jool was afraid the dark haired ex-Peacekeeper was about to hit her friend. But then a huge laugh erupted from Aeryn and she slapped Henta on the shoulder.  
  
“Yeah, who’s got the biggest mivonks?” Aeryn demanded. It sounded to Jool as though she might already be drunk. All of the evidence pointed that way. There were a multitude of liquid rings on the table top along with a couple of empty bottles of whatever it was they had found to drink.  
  
“Who’s got the strangest mivonks?” Henta countered, slapping the table top in her mirth. As Jool looked on in affronted disbelief, both the  
Peacekeepers cackled like the inebriated, uncouth soldiers that Jool knew them to be.  
  
“It’s not like that!” Jool protested. She took a swig of the raslak. Like always, it went straight to her head, loosening up her tongue on he way.  
  
“What is it like?” Aeryn asked gently.   
  
“All men are perverts!” Jool explained. She swallowed another mouthful of raslak to chase away the pain and disappointment which accompanied that realization.  
  
Henta giggled and nodded vigorously. Aeryn arched a questioning eyebrow.  
  
“Not that I’m disputing you, but in what way?” Aeryn enquired. Jool thought back to Crais and his obsession with what he had termed ‘hardware insertion’. He had pestered her over and over to agree to taking the transponder. He had piled on the emotional pressure in all sorts of unreasonable ways, saying things such as she would do it if she really loved him. And then there was Braca with his weird, leather fetish. It was almost as though she wanted him to look like Scorpius when they were together. And as for Crichton… well, she wasn’t sure how Aeryn would take it if she spoke about her experiences with the frankly strange human.  
  
“Let’s just say, I’ve dumped Crichton,” Jool admitted, thinking that that admission, said up front, might soothe Aeryn. “Or I’m going to, anyway.”  
  
Just the smallest hint of what might have been a contented smile seemed to play at the corner of Aeryn’s lips, giving Jool more confidence to continue.  
  
Having established that that news seemed to go down well, Jool decided, for better or worse, to share what had most upset her about the human.  “All he ever wanted to do was kiss. That and play with my hair. Oh, and talk!” She’d be the first to admit that she was a long way from being as experienced as Aeryn or Chiana, but she expected a little more from a boyfriend than just that. “He never seemed to shut up!”  
  
Aeryn laughed knowingly. To Jool it sounded like a bitter, empty sound.  
  
“Men! You’re better off without them,” Henta continued.  
  
“They will only bring you pain,” Aeryn added, a brief shadow of sadness flashing across her face.  
  
“You can bunk with us, if you like!” Henta added, flashing both her companions an encouraging smile.  
  
Jool blushed. She wasn’t like these Peacekeepers, frelling whoever came to hand simply in order to reduce stress, or rebalance fluid levels, as she knew they called it. Even if Henta’s invitation was no more than an honest solution to the combination of Jool’s troubled relationships and the limited sleeping accommodation on Talyn, Jool felt it was not for her.  
  
 “I couldn’t….” she demurred, shaking her head frantically, ringlets tumbling from side to side. “I’ll sort something out on my own.”  
  
Henta laughed at that, loud and uncouth. Even Aeryn gave a little smirk. Jool wasn’t quite sure why.  
  
“Hmm, yes, I reckon you’re better off balancing your own fluid levels,” Aeryn muttered into her raslak. “Frell men and their frelling emotions!” she added bitterly.  
  
Henta cackled. “Not literally, though, Aer?” she added. Aeryn scowled back. “Well, not unless they’ve got a really, really big, shiny module?”  
  
Aeryn raised an eyebrow and glowered coldly at Henta before turning her eyes to Jool. However, Jool was distracted. One of the other things that really got to her about Crichton was that he always seemed to want to make out in his module. Not only was it weird, it was downright uncomfortable: It was tiny inside and there were knobs and levers everywhere.  
  
 “Don’t listen to her.” Aeryn advised. “She’s just a cold-hearted, Peacekeeper bitch.”  
  
“Pah!” laughed Henta. “And like you’re not!”  
  
“I’m not” flounced Jool. “And I wasn’t!”  
  
“What you need is a Jirls Best Friend.” Aeryn continued. Jool frowned, trying to understand what Aeryn meant.  
  
“One with a good battery life. Copper tops last longest,” sniggered Henta. “But of course you’d know that.”  
  
Jool glowered at Henta. The woman was obscene and incorrigible. But then she was a Peacekeeper, so that was only to be expected.  
  
“You want everything you need to be in your own head,” Aeryn remarked sadly and a little unsteadily, picking her way carefully through the words.  
  
“You want everything you need to be between your legs,” Henta retorted lasciviously.  
  
“Then you won’t be relying on some frellwit to make you happy,” Aeryn snarled, glaring at Henta.  
  
“Oh, lighten up, Aeryn!” Henta responded, thrusting the bottle of raslak towards her. “Have another drink!”  
  
“Come on,” snapped Aeryn, grabbing Jool’s hand. “I’ll take you down to the med bay. Maybe they’ve got something down there you can use.”  
  
“Something, what?” Jool asked, still genuinely not understanding what Aeryn had in mind.  
  
“Hezmanna, you’re a hopeless innocent, aren’t you?” Aeryn replied, her eyes widening. “A vibra…”  
  
“Oh! Umm!” Jool exclaimed, interrupting Aeryn and frowning at her sudden flash of realisation. An object which she had seen very recently abruptly appeared in her mind’s eye. “Actually, I think John might have one in his quarters.”  The words were out before she even thought about them.  
  
“So you do know!” Henta crowed.  
  
Aeryn stopped dead in her tracks, frowning every bit as much as Jool. “What the frell would Crichton want with one of….  actually, I’m not sure I want to know.. . Let’s just go and get it!”  
  
‘~’  
  
The black latex sheets on Crais’ bed morphed and twisted, as though some strange creature of no fixed shape were conducting callisthenics beneath them.  
  
The sound of Sikozu giggling filled the room for a few microts before being abruptly muffled.  
  
“Oh yes!” Crais cried out. “Yes! Keep doing that! Talyn loves it when you do that!”  
  
Sikozu abruptly sat upright, tossing back the sheets before going completely still. She glared down at Crais, who lay on the bed beneath her. He was a little confused as to why she had suddenly stopped doing what she was doing and was now staring at him with a thunderous expression.  
  
“What’s wrong?” Crais asked, frowning.  
  
“What did you just say?” Her words fell like lead weights into icy water.  
  
“What? When?” Crais reached out a hand to her chest. She batted it away angrily.  
  
“You just said that Talyn loves it when I do that!”  
  
“No, I meant... ummm…. I don’t know what I meant.” There was a long silence.  
  
“Have you got your transponder in?” Sikozu asked. There was another longer silence.  
  
“Umm…  I might have forgotten to take it out before…”  
  
“You mean that little pervert has been watching us all this time!” Sikozu shouted, leaping from the bed and taking the sheet with her. Within two microts she had snatched her clothes from where they had fallen and was making for the door.  
  
“Sikozu! Sikozu! Come back! It’s not like that! Not like that at all!”  The door to his quarters swished shut behind Sikozu’s rapidly departing back. “Frell!” Crais remarked. Which was somewhat ironic considering that there now seemed to be very little chance of said activity in his immediate future.  
  
 _“Yes Talyn, I think she is a little more than just upset with us. No Talyn. I don’t think you should do that. Or that. Look, just for once, leave this to me, understood?”_  
  
 ‘~’  
  
Jool was alone in her quarters: She’d taken Aeryn’s advice, retiring to one of the sleeping quarters alone, except for the device they had recovered from Crichton’s room. Once she’d checked the door was locked, she’d settled down to enjoy some quality private time. It had been a much more invigorating and enervating experience than she’d expected. Almost as soon as she had activated the gadget, she had felt a shock run through her system unlike anything she had ever felt before. She knew the Peacekeepers took their recreation seriously, but this appliance made her feel so much more than she had ever expected. She would have to ask Aeryn what other similar toys the Peacekeepers had.  
  
The rest of the crew had also retired an arn earlier and now all was quiet except for the occasional gasp, cry, or exhortation to a deity from one or other of the adjoining quarters. Oh, and a strangely satisfying argument between Crichton and Braca as to who was going to get to spend the night in the fourth sleeping chamber and who was going to spend the night sleeping in the galley. She had turned down the light to its lowest setting, to aid restful sleep, and was busy brushing her hair. When they had been together Crais had insisted that she do so every night, saying that Talyn would be very upset if she moulted everywhere.  Braca had asked her to cut it, so that the leather skull cap he had wanted her to wear would fit better. Crichton had remarked that her grooming yielded a kitten’s worth of fur a night, whatever that was, before asking her if she’d ever considered dying it a different colour. Insensitive fekkiks, all of them! Aeryn was right. She was better off without a man, better off taking everything into her own hands and her own head.  
  
She was naturally surprised when a hand gently snagged hers, peeling the brush from her fingers, but for some reason, she did not cry out.  
  
 _“Here, let me do that,” spoke a cultured, somehow familiar male voice from behind her. The brushing continued, accompanied by capable fingers deftly fanning through her hair. Fingertips eased her hair aside and then moved closer, stroked her chin, tenderly worked their way up to her ear._  
  
 _“You know, I have always admired you. Your intellect, your personality, your fashion sense, your….” Teeth gently nibbled her neck, hot breath tickled her ear. A hand oh-so-playfully, and oh-so-briefly, with a ghostly delicacy, cupped one breast before moving away._  
  
Jool awoke with a start, her cheeks reddening to almost the same colour as her hair. Part of her was shocked that she had just had an erotic dream centred on Scorpius. But another, greater part of her wanted to return to the dream.  
  
“ _Well, that can be arranged, my dear,” he said, his breath once more hot and urgent on her neck._  
  
 _“Scorpius!?” Jool gasped, feinting to pull away from him in shock, but not exhibiting quite enough determination to actually succeed in doing so._  
  
 _“Actually, no,” he smiled disarmingly, gently turning her and holding her at arms length. She frowned in incomprehension. “I am nothing more than a phantasm. A figment of your imagination, if you will.”_  
  
 _“So you’re not real?”_  
  
 _“On the contrary, my dear, I am very real. But only to you. I exist….. only in your head.”_  
  
 _Only in my head? Very interesting, Jool thought to herself. But first there were things she needed to know, such as did this mean that she was now as crazy as Crichton?_  
  
 _“But how?” she began to seek answers._  
  
 _“Let’s just say that I am a clone of the neural clone of Scorpius that lives in John’s mind.”_  
  
 _“A clone?”_  
  
 _“Indeed.” He nodded.” John calls the other me Harvey.”_  
  
 _“Harvey. That’s a nice sound to it.”_  
  
 _“Thank you.” He smiled. It wasn’t exactly pleasant, but it was clearly the best he could manage._  
  
 _“So how did you get here, in my head?”_  
  
 _“Some sort of botched attempt to destroy the Harvey in John’s head, as I understand it. Instead of neutralizing me, they copied me. And then the copy… Well, maybe it’s best not to think about it too much. What’s done is done. All that matters is that now I am here for you.”_  
  
 _“So you’re just a figment of my imagination?”_  
  
 _“Yes.” He caressed her cheek. Having explained himself, he now seemed intent on returning to his previous amorous activities._  
  
 _“Oh!” she gasped as he kissed her neck, moving down towards her breasts. “So I can imagine anything I like with you.”_  
  
 _“Why, yes.” He mumbled into her décolletage._  
  
 _She could feel her heart beating faster with excitement. She grinned broadly. “Well, I must say, this presents some very interesting possibilities.”_  
  
 ‘~’  
  
“An escape pod. Out here?” John vocalised the thoughts of all those present on Talyn’s bridge.  
  
“Apparently it is from the command carrier,” Aeryn explained from another console. It was the most she had said to Crichton all week.  
  
“It’s drifting. Not responding to hails,” Henta supplied.  
  
“But it could contain hostiles?” Braca remarked, looking shifty and nervous. “If it’s from the carrier?”  
  
“We’d best go tooled up, then,” John replied with a snarl, slapping Winona and licking his lips as though he might actually be looking forwards to a bit of a fight.  
  
“Males!” Henta snorted disparagingly.  
  
“Very well, everyone who can do so, meet me in docking bay two in 200 microts. And bring weapons.” Crais announced, heading for the door. He had already instructed Talyn, through the transponder, to pull the pod in with his docking web.  
  
‘~’  
  
As Talyn’s crew waited for the docking bay to cycle the atmosphere was cold enough to freeze raslak. Yet the tension had little to do with the mystery of the pod. Almost everyone seemed to have at least one person that they were trying to avoid, some had two or three. Crais was trying to get closer to Sikozu, whilst at the same time she was trying to avoid him. Aeryn was ignoring Crichton and Henta, whilst Crichton, Crais and Sikozu were all trying to avoid Jool. Jool didn’t mind. She had a grin on her face and a far away look in her eye. Braca was quite shameless: Almost any time anyone bumped into him he tried to smile at them encouragingly. Everyone ignored his overtures.  
  
Finally, the air lock opened and, guns drawn, they filed in towards the battered Peacekeeper transport.  
  
‘~’  
  
It was dark inside, and the air was musty with the sweet yet slightly nauseating smell of urine and stale sweat.  
  
The crew fanned out and moved into the pod, torches searching out the secrets of the cabin. Dust motes rose and danced in the beams. The silence and stillness weighed heavily on the whole crew, causing half a dozen pulses to beat wildly.  
  
“Please don’t shoot!” Came a cultured, female voice from ahead of them. Almost as one the torch beams leapt around, searching for the speaker. “I’m perfectly harmless.”  
  
“Why didn’t any of you turn on the lights when you came in?” Sikozu remarked from the doorway, with just a hint of nonchalant superiority in her voice. She flicked a switch. The pod filled with bright light.    
  
An elderly female was revealed, hiding behind a chair deep inside the pod, grinning like an idiot. From her extra eye and enlarged ears the more experienced amongst the crew guessed her to be a Traskan.  
  
“Oh my, you’re a handsome young crew, aren’t you? I’m surprised you can keep your hands off of each other long enough to get anything else done,” the old lady teased playfully as she stood.  
  
There was a brief, uncomfortable period of silence, broken only by the odd cough or low whistle.  
  
“Shut the door, please Sikozu,” Crais asked, eventually breaking the silence.  
  
“Why?”  
  
“Because everyone is here. Look, just frelling do it,” Crais snapped back, picking something from his neck. Sikozu shrugged and did so.  
Crais reached into a pocket and pulled out a little black box. Without further ado he pressed a button on it. Several of the crew enquired as to what it was.  
  
“A comms suppressing device,” Crais explained. Ever since, a day earlier, he had discovered the shocking truth about recent events on  
Talyn, he had been waiting for the chance to get the crew off of the ship to let them all know. It had been a hard job keeping those thoughts from Talyn and he was relieved that fate had presented him with this opportunity so soon.  
  
“What’s that for?” was the near-universal sentiment in reaction to that revelation.  
  
“So we can talk without Talyn listening in,” Crais almost explained.  
  
“I thought you liked that?” Sikozu spat. Crais shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot but did not rise to her bait.  
  
“I have discovered…..” Crais faltered, seeming quite embarrassed. “That is to say… erm.”  
  
“Spit it out, man!” John encouraged to nods and grunts of support from all round.  
  
“It seems that Talyn,” Crais began again, his face reddening, “Talyn has been allowing… umm, actually, that’s not quite right. Talyn has been causing a low level Drexim leak.”  
  
Aeryn arched an eloquent eyebrow. “Oh!” she commented. Along with Crais she was the only one present on Talyn the last time that had happened, so she was the only one instantly familiar with what it meant.  
  
“Oh, indeed, Officer Sun.”  
  
“For how long?”  
  
“Since we escaped from the command carrier.”  
  
“Drexim, what’s that?” protested a number of other voices at once, Crichton’s being the loudest.  
  
“Drexim is a substance secreted by leviathans that provides them with the ability to either fight their way out of a situation, or to run away,” Sikozu supplied, as though reciting from a textbook in her head. “In certain conditions, it can seep into the passenger area, and will induce behaviour changes ranging from extreme hunger to an increased sex drive…..   Oh!” She finished with a shocked expression as a germ of realisation dawned on her. Beneath her breath, so no one else could hear, she muttered “its effects on bioloids are extreme and almost instantaneous.”  
  
“Indeed. But not only that.” Crais intoned seriously, his eyes moving from face to face to emphasize the importance of what he was about to say. “He has been videoing the… ahem… consequences.”  
  
“He what?”  
  
“Huh?”  
  
“Why?” Came a number of voices, protesting at once.  
  
“I am hoping it was all purely for his own, adolescent gratification.” Crais blushed an even deeper crimson. “At least, I hope that is all that it was,” he reiterated, dropping a small pile of vid chips on the console in front of him. “And I also hope that I have acquired all of the videos.”  
  
“So, we’ve all been horn-dogs for the last fortnight because Talyn has been pumping the air full of some sort of Uncharted Spanish Fly?” questioned John, inserting the obligatory incomprehensible Earth cultural reference. Most of the crew pointedly ignored him.  
  
“Perhaps. We all have to ask ourselves, would we have behaved as we have when not under the influence of drexim?” Crais tapped on the pile of vid-chips with one, black-leather-gloved finger. “And would we want everyone to know what we’ve been up to?”  
  
The faces in the pod reddened to match the colours of Jool and Sikozu’s hair.  
  
“But we do all know what we’ve been up to!” Jool commented.  
  
“And we’re all gonna have to face each other ever day over breakfast!” John added, to the confusion of everyone else, who couldn’t see what first meal had to do with anything.  
  
“It may be best,” Henta suggested hesitantly after a long, poignant silence. “To pretend that the last two weekens never happened. You know. To go our separate ways. Where possible, to pretend we never met.”    
  
There was a silence while everyone considered this suggestion, wondering if they’d be able to look at other members of the crew in quite the same way ever again. The silence was broken by a growing chorus of approval, with everyone being in rare agreement.  
  
“Ah, an excellent idea. I may be able to help you all with that,” interjected the crazy, somewhat smelly three-eyed old woman as she pulled out a little pouch of white powder from somewhere about her tattered clothing. She held the powder up in the palm of her hand and grinned. “So, who is staying aboard this magnificent specimen of a Leviathan?” She asked with a broad grin. “And who wants to get off?”  
   
  
 **The end. Your normal programming will resume momentarily.**

**Author's Note:**

> The Flame and the Figment Challenge, by Nebari Rebel:  
> "Jool and Crais are in a happy relationship until Crais suddenly runs off with Sikozu. Jool, broken-hearted, has a hot one-night stand with Braca and a brief unhappy affair with John, then follows the wise advice of Aeryn and finds true love with Harvey."


End file.
